ALCOHOL-exclusion zones should be set up in town to tackle problem drinking, according to St Helier’s Constable.
At a recent Havre des Pas Improvement Group meeting, Simon Crowcroft said the parish had tried “everything” to deal with the issue.
Speaking to the JEP following the meeting, Mr Crowcroft called it a “parish-wide” problem, involving groups congregating to drink, often outside shops and on street corners.
Shopkeepers were “quite reasonably” reluctant to do anything about people who had left the premises, he added.
And Mr Crowcroft said they received “regular complaints” from residents about people relieving themselves behind properties.
He said he believed the only solution was to introduce areas where drinking is not allowed – although he declined to comment on any areas he had in mind.
The idea of alcohol exclusion zones has been discussed in the past and an updated licensing law that would have limited where people were allowed to drink was drafted in 2011 by then-Economic Development Minister Alan Maclean, but it never came into effect.
Mr Crowcroft said: “That happens right across Europe now – there are alcohol exclusion zones where you are simply not allowed to drink alcohol in the street.
“It deters people from doing that.
“It’s been talked about for years in Jersey and it hasn’t happened.”
Implementing alcohol-free areas would require a law to be drafted and approved in the States, with Mr Crowcroft admitting this process could take some time.
Health Minister Tom Binet told a Scrutiny hearing in March that he hoped to find a way to target cheap alcohol sales in shops to tackle “concerning” levels of harmful drinking.
However, Mr Crowcroft said he did not share the Health Department’s concerns about the availability of cheap alcohol in shops.
